] I'm also reading a book with a chapter or two on the medical schools around that era. Given that they operated without benefit of anesthesia, I can understand the need for fortitude... and resignation... **shudder**

Yes,operations without benefit of an anathestic would be fearful. I've heard patients were made drunk if a gangerenous limb had to be removed (I don't know if ladies were turned into topors!) I checked out the countway.medical site U reccomended; thanks. Interesting assortment of materials.I see there were experiments in the early Nineteenth-century using ether anesthesia to render patients unconscious...I don't think it was widespread medical practise though.